Giants on a Dinky

The crowds lining the route held up their mobile camera-phones in front of them like an umpire's light meter. And on such a device the reading would have been high enough to break the machine. Along the streets from Mansion House to Trafalgar Square, the sun was so intense that you had to to suppress the guilty thought that, if this had been the weather at the Oval on Saturday and Sunday, England would never have gained the rain-affected draw that won the Ashes.

The searing brightness gave Michael Vaughan a reason to wear shades as the England captain daintily cradled the urn at the front of the open-topped bus. But he probably also had another one: the team had justifiably been celebrating all night. "Freddie" Flintoff had been spotted by a BBC reporter at dawn in the team hotel, drinking a gin and tonic.

A previous fearsome England bowler called Freddie - Trueman - used to make jokes about the kind of poncey cricketers who drank G&Ts instead of beer. But Flintoff represents a new kind of sporting masculinity: for most of the two-mile victory parade, he held his baby daughter, Holly, as if she were the trophy that really mattered.

Many tributes have been paid to the England team ethic but the bus journey, like the series, was dominated by two exhibitionist individuals. Flintoff worked the front rail, punching thumbs-up to the crowd with his baby-free hand. Kevin Pietersen (KP), the alleged show-pony who proved to be a thoroughbred when it mattered on the final day, stood on one side, his arms extended.

The usual rule is that screen stars look smaller in person but Flintoff and Pietersen both made the bus look like a Dinky toy. At every point along the way, the first hint of the players' impending arrival was a line of police horses and then motorcycles, ranked in four and fives like an attacking slip cordon. As the double-decker was glimpsed, the shouts began. Screaming women seemed to favour "Freddie, Freddie"; men preferred "KP, KP."

But, while the superstars inevitably attracted the fuss, Vaughan made the occasion touchingly inclusive. At one point, he waved a St George flag reading Gary Pratt, OBE, a reference to the young cricketer from Durham who was not an official member of the squad but made a crucial run-out in the Trent Bridge Test as a substitute fielder. Pratt was also part of the parade, as were the England women's cricket team, who waved their own recently-won Ashes trophy from the front of a following bus. In the absence of any explanation of who they were, the crowd suffered some confusion. "That'll be the wives and stuff," said one watcher confidently.

From Queen Victoria Street to Cannon Street, the crowd were mainly City types in expensive shirtsleeves. One took a mobile phone call, which seemed to be a dawn query from Wall Street: "Kurt, this isn't a good time. The England cricket team's about to go past." A pause and then, irritatedly: "Yes, it's kind of a big thing here."

It certainly felt like a big thing. Men selling St George pennants were shouting "Pound each for a flag. 'Ave a wave." Police and news helicopters hovered low enough to be at risk from a Pietersen six.

The convoy turned into Fleet Street. It is almost free of journalists now but the older players may have thought of their heavy wheels crushing the ghosts from the long period when English cricket was so bad that a headline could read: Can't bat, can't bowl, can't field. Now, as the parade went by, there were lots of jokes among the spectators about the risk of Geraint Jones and Pietersen - the series' two England butterfingers - dropping the trophy or their bottles of champagne. But this was a new kind of humour for an England fan: triumphant irony not bitter character assassination. In the middle of the old newspaper district, there was a sudden hiatus. The cops halted the procession and mounted police rode towards Starbucks, clearing a way across the pavement. There were jokes about horses wanting coffee until a huge man with a white streak in his hair jogged through. Pietersen had needed a pee. They will probably put a plaque in the lavatory. Part of KP's startling freedom as a stroke-player is a streak of childish glee and so it seemed entirely right that he had caused the potty stop. You imagined Vaughan asking exasperatedly: "Didn't you go before we left?"

This Ashes victory has been achieved largely through careful planning: from the central contracts that keep England players fresh for Tests to the calculations of where to bowl to individual Australians. Even so, one piece of preparation had given a superstitious chill to England supporters: last week's revelation that Trafalgar Square had been pre-booked for a victory rally. Although this was an obligation caused by London bureacracy, we knew in our hearts that the celestial umpires would punish this hubris and the plans for the parade would turn up in a cricket museum in 50 years as an ironic exhibit.

But pessimism is one of the bad habits English cricket has overcome this year and this was really happening. As the cavalcade neared Trafalgar Square, you could hear Jerusalem booming from speakers. Then the words of English cricket's unofficial hymn appeared on a giant screen, the words "countenance divine" coinciding with a shot of Flintoff celebrating a wicket. Even amid the euphoria, it was hard not to remember that the sporting celebration in Trafalgar Square to mark London becoming 2012 Olympic city took place on the final day of innocence before the July 7 bombings. Yesterday's happiness in the capital does not cancel out the earlier tragedy but it was a joy to see this sporting summer's final surprise: London's police smiling again.